(1) Field of the Invention
The invention is a system for playing an interactive voter choice card and board game involving strategy and chance, a computer network, a game board, and a plurality of players using remote terminals to access the game board, electronic databases and a voting utility to develop competing strategies to build winning voting blocs to elect a candidate for public office to represent a fictive election district.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Studies show a trend toward decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s. (See “Voter Turnout”, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Voter_turnout, retrieved Jan. 7, 2012.) Although computer networks and the internet have the potential to foster increased participation in elections, they do not appear to have exerted a significant effect on this downward trend. Effective computer- and web-based inventions designed to leverage this potential have yet to emerge, largely due to the complexity of electoral processes and the many factors and obstacles that decrease citizen participation in these processes and influence over their outcomes. Existing games to enhance civic engagement are limited by their focus on teaching voters more about the intricacies of electoral processes and institutions that frustrate voters and thwart civic participation in elections.
This inventor's recently patented Interactive Voter Choice System (U.S. Pat. No. 7,953,628) is designed to increase citizen participation in elections and influence over their outcomes by enabling voters to take action before elections to circumvent these factors and obstacles. It does this by providing voters access to unique databases to set collective legislative agendas and build voting blocs and electoral coalitions to run and elect their own candidates. The present application provides voters an amusing multiparty game for learning how to increase their influence over elections and their outcomes by using core features of the Interactive Voter Choice System to overcome the factors and obstacles that thwart their participation and diminish their influence.
Among the most significant obstacles to voter participation in elections is the fact that many voters believe their votes do not make any difference. Research shows that voters in the U.S., for example, think elected representatives, and often the political parties that back them, tend to pass legislation favoring the special interests that finance their electoral campaigns rather than their constituents. (See: Jonathan D. Salant, “Few Want Members of Congress Re-Elected, Poll Finds (Update1)”, Bloomberg News, Feb. 12, 2010, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aEsowrlv31_g, retrieved Jan. 8, 2012; Pew Research, Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor: The People and Their Government, Apr. 18, 2010, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1569/trust-in-government-distrust-discontent-anger-partisan-rancor, retrieved Jan. 15, 2012.)
Another factor contributing to citizens' lack of participation in elections is the fact that laws governing elections, campaign financing, and the establishment of election district boundaries, often make it difficult for new candidates to run for office and defeat incumbents. (See “Congressional stagnation in the United States”, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_stagnation_in_the_United_States, retrieved Jan. 8, 2012.) Laws preventing new candidates from having a fair chance to win elections prompt dissatisfied voters to stay at home and not vote at all when they see there are no new candidates on the ballot running against incumbents with legislative track records they find unsatisfactory. (See “53% Say Elections are Rigged to Help Incumbents in Congress”, Rasmussen Reports, May 12, 2011. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/may—2011/53_say_elections_are_rigged_to_help_incumbents_in_congress, retrieved Jan. 15, 2012.)
While these obstacles render many voters inactive, they can exert an opposite effect on other voters. Research has found that voters' lack of confidence in elections and elected lawmakers appears to be leading many to conclude they have no choice but to take action outside traditional electoral and legislative processes. (See Nicholas Kulish, As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe, New York Times, Sep. 27, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/as-scorn-for-vote-grows-protests-surge-around-globe.html, retrieved Jan. 11, 2012).
One way to prevent frustrated voters from deciding not to participate in elections, or resorting to actions outside electoral processes that might increase rather than decrease tensions, is to provide all voters of all persuasians new ways to increase their influence over elections by enabling them to run and elect their own candidates to enact legislative agendas set by the voters who elected them. Computer networks like the internet can help voters in this regard because their multiparty communication capabilities enable large numbers of voters to communicate with each other and organize online. (See Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations, Penguin, 2008.) At this time, however, computer networks do not appear to have reversed the trend for more voters to become apathetic or seek redress of their grievances outside electoral processes.
Moreover, networks like the internet have also proved to be largely inadequate when it comes to helping voters agree on what legislation they want enacted and which candidates they want to run for public office and elect to enact their legislative priorities. These differences prevent them from aligning in favor of common legislative agendas and candidates. Unless voters can build consensus among themselves on their legislative priorities and build voting blocs and electoral coalitions to elect candidates to enact their priorities, voters' influence over electoral and legislative processes and their outcomes is unlikely to increase. This inventor's Interactive Voter Choice System (U.S. Pat. No. 7,953,628) provides voters unique web-based tools to address these unmet needs. The present application for a “system for playing an interactive voter choice game” provides voters of all persuasions an amusing game of strategy and chance to help them learn how to use similar tools to take advantage of computer networks, the internet and electronic data processing techologies increase their influence over elections and their outcomes.